


The Serpent's Tail

by dashery



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Detectives, Dreams, Gen, Humanstuck, Illustrated, Minor Character Death, Murder, Mutilation, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-28
Updated: 2012-12-28
Packaged: 2017-11-22 17:35:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/612436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dashery/pseuds/dashery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a city that never dreams, Jane Crocker and Dirk Strider solve crimes. But when Dirk is taken off a homicide for old choices he once made, Jane must struggle with a stand-in partner from the forensics department and an informant who seems to know more about ancient kingdoms than current events. And what is happening to her nightmare?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Clock Street

**Author's Note:**

  * For [auf_asche](https://archiveofourown.org/users/auf_asche/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane gets the call.

In Jane's dream, there are no stars. Her city is a hole.

Streets she can normally map with the sole of her foot are too wide, too uneven. The tenements of the Maple-Ruijter neighborhood tower up and over her as if she's looking from the bottom of a pool, the buildings' suddenly unfamiliar lines curved and distorted against the blacker slate of the world. Their edges are like scratch-marks on velvet, windows and walls barely distinguishable in the night. It's an impenetrable darkness that suggests not space, but solidity. As if blind in a closed room, she knows that because she can't see her hand, her hand is no longer there--she's cased in nothingness rigid as a blackboard. The sky could be clouded, but there is no sky; there is nothing beyond the rooftop of the old library. Even her breath is flat.

And then the big man comes. He is alone, but so is she, and the mass of him is unreal, all nameless colors and meat. He is bald power. His eyes bulge and jitter and pulse with starved rage. Without reaching, he pulls the streets towards him like a carnival conveyor belt. He is gravitational, inescapable. In the dark, he stretches from one stifled horizon to the other, and wherever she turns, he is already there, open jaw raw and dislocated around rotting laughter.

She knows him. They all do. He is the Lord of dreamers.

The monster of a man chases her down into the bowels of the city that, at night, is no longer hers. Underground, the blind claustrophobia chokes her, but she continues to run. Downward, always downward she descends in a tightening noose of a loop, and always she feels his hot breath on the back of her neck telling her to run, girl. He will catch her, but she runs. She must.

Jane has fled this chase every night since he swallowed the city's dreams.

She knows what comes next. She will round a corner in the tunnel, teeter on a sudden brink where the coal-dust nothingness opens into infinity. The suddenness of space is enough to trigger her vertigo, even if she cannot gauge the abyss below her feet. But the moment she starts to breathe in the crisp, cold vacuum, something will punch into her spine like a red-hot rip--

The blaring ring of her landline phone ripped through her instead. Jane flailed out of her covers and hit the floor.

She wasn't underground. She was in her apartment bedroom, its faded margarine walls an anonymous grey in the midnight darkness. Her windows had no blinds but gauzy drapes that let in enough light to lend her belongings comfortingly solid corners. She lay there in a tangle of bedsheets, pulse racing, and waited for the fear to drain out of her like a lanced boil.

The phone rang again

"Land's sake--"

After twisting upright against the nightstand, she groped blindly behind her until her hand met the familiar, yellowed plastic of her handset and dragged it down to her ear. "Yes?" she croaked into earpiece, frowned, and then flipped it over. It was almost impossible to be afraid while touching such an almost uselessly old-fashioned piece of work. "This is Jane Crocker."

"Detective." She sat up immediately, electrified, and felt her nightmare vaporize on her held breath. "We got a 187 on Clock."

Her heart tripped, skidded, and found its footing, strong and fast. "When?"

"Half an hour ago." After a pause--they had been so close--he added, "I know it's not my jurisdiction, but it looks like the same killer as last time."

Jane's breath hissed out of her, but there was grim satisfaction in it. "Tell Strider to give me ten minutes. I'll be there in two shakes."

It was almost three-thirty in the morning, and Jane had a murder to solve.

Thursday, November 9th, 3:34 A.M.; Clock Street

Dirk greeted her by the damp, foggy scene with an umbrella in one hand and a caramel mocha in the other. "You drink, I'll talk," he said, offering her the cup.

Jane was draggy on barely four hours' troubled sleep, gritty-mouthed, cold, and wet, and she couldn't have loved him more. Ignoring her partner's protests of "Jane. Jane," she mashed Dirk's bony cheeks around until he raised the mocha over her head and threatened to pour.

"If we're done being fucking professionals," he said as Jane finally accepted her coffee.

"Not just yet. Mm." She could have sworn the mocha melted over her tongue, always a little bitterer than expected but golden and buttery and life-giving. A mini-sunrise crept through her from her stomach to her fingertips. Already she felt a little more human and a little less like a stone creature dragged across the sidewalks.

Dirk swept some wet hair from his forehead. Despite his umbrella, the misty drizzle was wreaking havoc on his styling. "Sleep okay?"

She felt her brows knit and pressed them down with the pad of her thumb. "The usual, Mr. Strider. Though I suppose you wouldn't know about bad dreams."

He shrugged one shoulder. They both knew he didn't dream anymore. "Not for a long time, anyway."

Without speaking, she flapped her hand at him. They both began to walk under the rain: Jane, nose-deep in her drink, and Dirk adjusting his sunglasses in the dark. There were few lights on Clock Street, removed as it was from the louder, poor districts, and the asphalt glimmered wetly with the suggestion of invisible eyes. The police on the scene, busy with their yellow tape and clipboards, worked in murmurs and tried not to look over their shoulders. Jane clomped noisily in her boots to break the street's cloying quiet.

"Where's Dave?" she asked Dirk. "I see Officer Reyes."

Dave's stocky patrol partner and senior officer was in the middle of unwinding a roll of caution tape and had draped several feet of it in loops across his chest. He'd gotten caught up in questioning what looked like a high school student in a violet nightgown. The girl's long curls bounced listlessly as she shook her head again and again. She was twisting the frayed hem of her skirt in her hands as she stared down the street at something out of Jane's view.

"Hey, A.R.," said Dirk when they were in earshot.

Officer Arnold Reyes looked over his shoulder, then returned Dirk's nod of greeting with a curt one of his own. "Victim's sister," he said, terse and wide-eyed as he always was when swept up in the excitement of procedure. He took a moment for Jane, though, and mimed doffing a hat. "Sorry to wake you, Crocker, but this particular foulness smells like your squad all over."

"No harm done, Mister Reyes. I appreciate the call." She tipped her fedora in response, then glanced around for his car. "You're not here alone, though, are you?"

"That's a negative. We got a 10-2 from the house, and junior went back to make a pick-up." A policewoman tapped Dirk's shoulder and took him aside. Officer Reyes tucked the roll of tape under his arm, then turned back to the girl. "When my partner comes back, we're taking you down to the station to ask you a few more questions, all right?" Though gruff, Officer Reyes's voice was soft.

"I didn't see anything," said the girl in a distant, hollowed voice as if speaking from some deep catacomb. She was looking at Jane, now. Her eyes were dry and staring. "She came home, and I went to bed. Then there was a noise, and when I came to look, she was gone."

"No sign of a break-in," Officer Reyes added. "She said the door was unlocked, but closed. We're looking for prints."

The girl's attention wandered off to the side again, where the knot of officers was most concentrated, where the yellow tape hung thickest. Jane watched her shiver for a moment, tiny pearls of rain dewing her tangled hair, and then removed her hat.

"Here." She settled the fedora lightly atop the girl's head and tucked a loose curl back behind her ear. "That hat's good enough to keep this consarned drizzle off your neck until Officer Reyes gets you a good cup of cocoa. It's been through the wringer, that hat. Multiple, even. Doozies of wringers."

Eyes fixed on Jane, the girl lifted two hesitating hands to the brim of the hat, only to tug it down more securely over her hair. Jane smiled and gently laid her hand on the crown. "It's something of a precious heirloom to me, so I'll be looking for you once I get to the bottom of this muckhole."

The girl blinked slowly. "You'll find her killer?"

"I will." Jane took her hand back press her fist over her heart. She felt Dirk's solid presence at her back and pulled herself up to her full height. "These gumshoes were made to stick. We won't give up until we see the truth through. That's a promise."

The girl watched her searchingly, red eyes flickering as she measured Jane's. Eventually, finally, she nodded. Officer Reyes let out a breath and started winding his police tape again.

Jane nodded, too, and moved on with Dirk. She had a crime to solve and her coffee was cooling.

Dirk lifted a strip of police tape for her, and oh, he had remembered to get the extra shot of caramel at the bottom of her cup. She could have swooned. Instead, she swallowed the last mouthful of sunshine, shook off the remaining rags of her interrupted sleep, and said, "All right. Full steam ahead, Detective Di-Stri. Tell me everything you know about our mysterious femme fatale."

"Well," Dirk said, pocketing his free hand. "Someone took the fatale part to heart."

In the middle of the street, at the end of a thick, bloody streak cordoned off by the police and harshly lit, lay the mutilated body of a woman some years older than she, face turned away and screened with the same thick, dark hair as the Officer Reyes' girl. She'd been wearing a dress whose indiscernible Asian origin pointed to no Asian origin at all: the sort of stiff, constricting tube of cheap silk sold for four times its worth on eBay--a knock-off cheongsam worn by prostitutes in action films.

"Name's Damara Megido. Twenty-seven, listed as a domestic and a nanny." Dirk's expression didn't change, but Jane could write a dissertation on the different tenors of his pauses. She knew exactly what sort of profession he was insinuating Megido professed, and after getting a good look at her get-up, Jane was inclined to agree. He continued, "No criminal record under that name, but we'll check her prints and see if anything comes up."

One of her legs showed scratches from being dragged into the street. The other had been torn off at the knee, messily but completely. The stringy, shredded stump sat redly in a puddle of black--the glossy lime-soda fabric of her dress dyed with death. Someone had hiked one side of her skirt up enough to photograph the damage and left it lifted like a teenager's morbid fantasy.

Dirk kept talking as Jane pulled a pair of gloves on. "Same M.O. as this month's favorite unclaimed sideshow toe taggers."

"The weird clowns from two weeks ago?" Jane grimaced and wrinkled her nose, crouched by the corpse. The wet weather was not doing any favors for the woman's decomposing complexion. Dirk lowered the umbrella to cover Jane as she set down her empty cup and gently lifted the dead face from the sidewalk, ignoring the sticky noise as her water-bloated skin peeled away from the rusty cement.

"Yeah. They did the leg, put a bullet through the heart while she was down, and then left a tip for the ferryman."

"There's a little blood in her hair," Jane noted. "Blunt force trauma to the back of her head."

Dirk paused. He hadn't noticed--and she wondered how well he'd slept, or if he even had--but he took it in stride. "Before or after she was killed, though? Could've dropped her when they moved the body."

Jane chewed her lip, then shook her head. "I haven't the foggiest."

"I'll add it to the quiz for the forensics team."

The fine rain drifted down to bead the strange, pale coins wedged into the woman's sunken, blood-crusted eye sockets. Her eyes had been removed. The coins, each the size of a silver half-dollar, propped her dead eyelids open to stare forever at her absent killer.

Twin snakes coiled where her irises would have been.

Dirk scratched at his ankle with the heel of his shoe. "Same coins as last time. Still looks like electrum. Our perp's a firm believer in leaving what ain't broke unfixed, especially if it's pretentious as fuck. Where do they even find this shit?"

"No leads on where the coins come from, then?"

"Not yet. They either mint them themselves by melting down some ancient Hellenistic stash, or they, you know." He blew air through his nose. "Teleport them in from outer space."

With the care she'd use to serve a soufflé, Jane slid one of the coins out of the dead woman's skull and placed it in a plastic bag. "I'll add Captain Kirk to the list of suspects."

"At least then we'd have a list."

Jane returned the dead woman's head to where it had lain and set to examining the chest wound as delicately as possible. "So, Megido. Was she wet?"

"We didn't find any dust on her, but we're going to have to wait for forensics. Especially given our friends the dead juggalo brothers from Mount Phencyclidine."

"We still don't have a clue who they were, do we?"

Dirk dragged at a wet leaf with his foot. "Not even a suggestive blue pawprint. I talked to forensics a few minutes ago. They still haven't sourced the PCP Thing One and Thing Two were on when they bit it, but they haven't yet exhausted our city's ample supply of suppliers. We'll pin them down."

Finding nothing of use at the bullet's entry site but blood and burned flesh, Jane moved down, lifted the other side of the woman's dress. Dirk turned away politely, though Jane knew he'd already looked. She said, "She had interesting taste in knives, for a nanny."

"Stilettos." Dirk sounded faintly pleased. He'd always had a weird, anachronous thing for edged weapons. "The thigh holster's custom, but unmarked. Same with the knives. No prints on any of it. The blades are even thinner than usual."

Jane drew one from its sheath, turned it carefully in the low floodlights. "They're almost like needles. Will you look into the maker?"

"Already got my face smashed to the metaphorical glass like a Theta Delta Chi pledge at his first peep show. I'm looking so deep into this matter," he said, lifting one hand palm-up, "I can smell every genital wart in its treasure box."

"Geez Louise, Dirk. I don't know whether I should keep my figurative fingers crossed for your metaphor's virginity or for your STI results." She handed the knife to Dirk, who sealed it in his own plastic bag. "And we are sure the murder weapon is the same gun."

"Again, waiting on forensics," said Dirk. "But I'd stake a couple heirloom hats on it."

Jane sat back on her heels and braced her elbows on her thighs. "Dirk, we've got three dead bodies with their legs ripped off and no eyes, and nary a visible strand of commonality between them. It's been two weeks, and the Mayor's trying to reopen the old university in two days to show how far we've come. We don't have enough to go on."

"I know." As he spoke, though, he shifted his weight, and Jane knew her partner well enough now that she could read him, blind, in Sanskrit. She crinkled her brows at him.

"Strider. What is it."

"What's what."

"Whatever it is that's making you fidget like you need to use the little boys' room!" she said, flinging both hands above her head. "If I wanted to deal with bed-wetting kindergartners, Dirk, I'd have opened a daycare with Roxy."

He raised an eyebrow. "Not with me?"

"No, sir; because you," she rose and said, not quite poking him in the chest, "would be in it." Jane started to strip the gloves from her hands. "Get on with it, Detective. You're wasting valuable non-daylight."

She disposed of the gloves with her coffee cup and Dirk sighed. "She's Felt."

Immediately, that electric stirring leaped up her spine, though this time it was tinged with dread. "Have you seen her before?"

"No." He drew the needle-knife from his pocket and turned it, grim-faced, around his fingers. "And no, I can't prove it. Not until one of these leads pans out."

"Then, Dirk, how can you expect me to--"

"Believe me." He caught the knife suddenly, arm fully extended, his knuckles tight around the grip. "She was with English. She could pilot the dreams."

Jane said nothing. Her mouth was dry.

Slumping, Dirk flicked the knife back around his hand and stowed it in his pocket again. "She'll take me off the case."

"No, Commissioner Quinn wouldn't--"

"If this case is Felt? She has to." He shrugged stiffly. "My shit is compromised."

They both said nothing for a moment, and the falling rain made no sound. Jane knew what Dirk had traded to keep his brother from waking to darkness. What he had given to keep Roxy's infant daughter safe.

Jane might have bolted from nightmares every morning, but losing one's dreams entirely did something to a person. She didn't understand, but she could see it etched in the lines under Dirk's eyes. Loss like a limb's. And a helpless, animal fear.

"If we're being taken off the case," she began.

But Dirk shook his head. "Not you, Jane. Just me. I already arranged it with Quinn; this is some heady stuff we're sniffing, and we need your nose on it."

"What?" Jane could feel the awkward knots her face was tying itself into while she tried to keep up. "But you're my partner, I can't just--"

"You'll have a temp. You know, a substitute from one of the other departments, just for this case. Consider her an intern. I'm pretty sure you two will get on."

"What? Who?"

They both turned as wet tires skidded to a stop behind them.

"That's probably her," Dirk noted blandly.

Dave draped his arm over the driver's side window of the patrol car and tucked his chin wearily into his elbow. "Nah, don't mind me. I'm just the precinct chaffeur. Continue with your dramatic whodunit reveal or whatever," he mumbled into his sleeve.

But he was further interrupted by the opening and slamming of the passenger door. "Janey!"

Jane gaped. "Lalonde?"

Roxy rounded the front of the car and, ignoring Dave's grumble of protest, leaned in through the window to plant a noisy kiss on the top of his head. "Take your big bro straight home after you check back with HQ and make sure you both get plenty of winks, okay?" she said, mussing his hair.

"Roxy," Dirk started.

"Z-z-zip!" Roxy pointed at Dirk and made a zipping motion across her face. "You, Di-Stri, are officially off the case." She left Dave, redistributed the weight of her messenger bag on her shoulder, and patted Dirk's back. "One of our guys positively ID'ed your stiff as one of Scratch's girls, which means she's confirmed for Felt, and you are confirmed for a snooze."

Jane lifted a hand to cover a snicker as Roxy started to shove Dirk towards Dave's car. He didn't resist, but he said, "I've got some work to finish up at the station, so I need to--"

"Nope." Roxy pressed one finger over his lips and then petted his cheek. "That's an order from Her Royal Dubsy Quinn. And it's past Dave's bedtime."

"Mnuh," said Dave articulately.

When Dirk didn't move, Roxy plucked the umbrella from his grasp and reached around him to open the backseat door. "Q also said that she needs your help with the Peixes investigation, so she wants you fed, bathed, and rested till you glow, Little Prince. Totes her words, by the way."

Even as she approached them, Jane couldn't quite see Dirk around Roxy--they were nearly the same height--but she could imagine the way his expression twitched and then melted in the face of Waheeda Quinn's commanding affection. "All right," he said, getting in the car, but he propped the door before Roxy could close it. "Jane?"

"I'll be all right, Dirk. We ladies shan't keep you from your wink-rustling." She was smiling, she knew, and Roxy grinned and linked arms with her. "In fact, with Ro-Lal here, I think we'll have this settled before the Mayor's grand hoodang."

Dirk looked at the ceiling."Great. I'll give a toast. Listen, I'm going to put you through to my favorite informant, all right? The one I wouldn't let you meet before."

"Who?" Jane tilted her head for a moment, then nearly bounced upright in her excitement. "The infamous Calliope, you mean?"

"Got it in one. She's a day creature, though, so I'll try to set you up for lunch."

"Bro," Dave groaned, turning his head. "Leaving now. Girl-date matchmaking later."

After a weighty pause, Dirk reached forward to unbuckle Dave's seatbelt. "Okay, Princess Beauty Sleep. You're letting A.R. drive this thing."

It took some time to get Officer Reyes and the threadbare girl bundled into the car, and Dirk ended up switching shotgun with Dave, but it was for the best; Dave seemed to strike common ground with the girl when he, in his nonsensical sleeplessness, brought up owl pellets. When they drove off, it should have felt quiet on Clock Street, but Roxy let the umbrella fall, shook out her hair, and looked down at the corpse on the sidewalk. She put on her best thinking face and stroked her chin. Finally, she pointed.

"Man, that broad is all hells of fucked up."


	2. Museum Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dirk's informant confirms Jane's suspicions.

Thursday, November 9th, 1:13 P.M.; Museum Way

Cafés lined the wide, airy avenue of Museum Way like holiday girls with parasols, each distinguished by the pastel shade of its awning and nothing else. Bus drivers and art students nursed nightmare hangovers over lukewarm, unsweetened coffee.

Roxy Lalonde was tall, sweet, loyal, eager to please, and one of the most dangerously intelligent minds to grace forensic criminology in decades. She had good scientific instincts and rarely missed the most infinitesimal cue, no matter the contortions she had to go through to reenact a gunshot or recreate a chemical reaction. After all her tests and trials, she was now a dead shot with a rifle and an expert in her narrow field of biochem. For that, Commissioner Quinn had kept her on through the roughest, lowest sweeps of her life until Roxy finally came up with a rose in her teeth. A rose she grew a garden around to protect and nurture.

Roxy was the baddest single mother this side of Sarah Connor, and Jane's best friend.

She was also impossibly chatty for a woman who'd been up half the night and the whole morning talking shop with Jane while doing bloodwork on a corpse.

"I'm still sort of surprised nothing came up on her except, like, pot," Roxy said after brushing crouton crumbs from the corners of her mouth. "I mean, those clowns were fucking filthy with, you know." She twitched her fingers meaninglessly at the ceiling, then chopped her hand down over her salad. "Filth and shit! I couldn't even find funky experimental crapola on her. And I was so excited, too."

"Doc Scratch is said to keep a close watch on his girls." Jane picked idly at her croissant. The caffeine from Dirk's lifesaving mocha had long since worn off, leaving her stomach sour. She had a headache. "Though, while we're discussing the topic of watchmen: Who did you get to look after Rose?"

Roxy's smile went soft and wide. She always sat up straighter when it came to her daughter, Jane had noticed. "She stayed at Auntie Quinn's last night, and then Dave offered to pick her up from daycare today since he's off-duty."

Jane smiled without meaning to. "Cute."

"He's a sweetheart. I bet he'd take her to the Mayor's university shindig if he could. Baby's got him wrapped around her little finger." Roxy wiggled her pinky, then leaned forward. "So we've got two days to lock this down if we want Dirk to make a speech. What've we got?"

A croissant had probably never received a frown so frustrated as Jane's. "A fat load of nothing so far, Ro-Lal."

"Come on, Janey. This was deliberate as fuck. Someone broke into her house, clocked her in the head, and then dragged her outside to take her out, execution-style. Bodies are heavy, nobody would do it like that unless they wanted us to find the body. You know that's not nothing."

Jane rubbed her eyes and started to tear her lunch into soft, tiny flakes of pastry. "We currently have three dead bodies all murdered the same way, at least one of which was affiliated with the most powerful crime lord our time has ever known, and all our hard-nosed work is turning up diddly squat on the culprit. We don't even know if there's more than one or if we're simply dealing with an exceptionally strong lone ranger!"

Roxy's exuberance faltered. "You sleeping okay, girl?"

"No." Destroying the croissant solved nothing, and Jane ground the heels of her hands against her temples. "When does anyone in this city sleep okay, Lalonde?"

"Well, yeah, I know, life sucks under our demon slumberlord, but usually you're a whole lot more, um." Mouth open, Roxy groped for words.

"Smooth? Cool-headed? To the verge of being cucumber-esque?"

Her friend snapped her fingers. "Yeah! Pickle-jarred!"

Jane could feel all expression melt off her face, and then consternation dragged her brows down, too. "Beg pardon?"

"Like, say solving crime's your pickles, right? And then you're the jar, and the lid too, I guess, and everyone who makes your life hard--you know, wily criminals and shit--they're just hungry jerks trying to twist you open and take your pickles away." As if demonstrating, Roxy reached over and snatched her ravaged croissant from its plate and twisted off a huge chunk. "Bu-ut, you hang in there with your weird skept-optimism, all like, 'I doubtfully doubt you can crack me, you blackguard! I'm keeping this jar of dill as hard tight as my shucks-busting ass.'"

Jane's mouth twitched. "So I'm a pickle jar and a tight-ass?"

In a show of motherly care Jane would not have seen in her five years ago, before Rose, Roxy held the croissant chunk in front of Jane's face. "But that's why we love you, Janey," she said. "Being a tight-ass pickle jar is what makes you good. Eat, honey."

Finally, Jane sighed, took the offered piece, and popped it in her mouth. "I'm sorry, Roxy. I just. You know how it is when we deal with the Felt. I cannot abide feeling so powerless."

Roxy said nothing, but her face was an eloquent expression all of itself. Empathy, fear, pain, understanding--she knew Jane's loss because it was her own. The Felt meant nightmares, even for those, like Roxy, like Dave and Rose, who hadn't woken to them yet. The Felt meant death.

What defense was there in all the world against a tyrant who could kill one's dreams? Who could drive one's mind to ruin?

No one talked about their night terrors anymore. Everyone faced Lord English alone.

"I'm sure I'd feel more 'good' if this investigation had something substantial to stand on. The specific murder method and presentation of the bodies obviously means someone is trying to make a statement, but what? Is it something internal to the Felt? Is he rooting out bad apples? Or is someone actually challenging Lord English?"

She wasn't speaking loudly, but she still felt the air of the café buzz on her skin. Or maybe it was her own quickening nerves at the possibility of rebellion. Still, Jane dampened the silly hope and went on, "But why? And who? There's so little to work with, I couldn't measure it with a teaspoon."

"Your chum is quite right, though. It isn't nothing."

Jane sat bolt upright just as Roxy turned to look at the table beyond them. A woman had spoken--a slip of a girl, really. She looked a few years younger than them and wore a ridiculous synthetic wig that would do Albert Einstein proud. Her eyes were a huge, luminous green that reminded Jane of nothing so much as the radioactive stones in children's cartoons, and they took over her petite, hollow-cheeked face like halogen lamps.

The girl smiled awkwardly, showing a couple too many teeth, and actually raised her hand to waggle her fingers at them.

"Hello, lovelies. Um. I don't suppose Dirk let you know I'd be joining you for lunch? He said you'd be here."

It took Jane a long, tired moment to catch up. "Oh! I plumb forgot in all this hullabaloo. You wouldn't happen to be Calliope, would you?"

She actually clapped. Land's sakes alive, but this girl brought new meaning to the word _adorable_. "Huzzah! I knew you'd gumshoe out who I was right off. Pardon my ebullience, I'm just unbelievably chuffed to meet you two. Dirk's told me so much about you."

Calliope--Dirk's long-secret informant--sported a bowtie, a blazer, and the worst fake English accent Jane had ever had the pleasure to hear. She was tiny and immediately likable, and Roxy scooted her chair towards Jane's to make room. "Come on then, Callie, you can sit your super mysterious cutie butt right here and spill all the juicy dirt Dirk wouldn't tell us about you. How'd a sweet girl like you get mixed up with that humongous tool?"

"Oh, but Dirk isn't--"

"No, I'm afraid he really is," Jane said fondly as Calliope, flustered, looked for a chair to pull up to their table. "A cherished friend and invaluable colleague, but definitely some kind of mammoth instrument."

Roxy snorted and guffawed.

"Um, well." Calliope took her cinnamon roll from the other table, sat, and adjusted her wig. "I suppose he's a little bit, hmm. Intense, perhaps?"

"Insufferable is more fucking like it." Roxy wiped tears from her eyes speared a slice of apple from her salad.

With a chuckle of her own, Jane nibbled at her croissant and wiped at her mouth with a napkin. "It's all right, dear, you don't have to agree with us regarding one Dirk Strider's overbearing micro-managerial bent towards his friends and family."

"He isn't the worst I've seen, but I'll take your word for it! I'm sure you two know him much better than I do," said Calliope, lifting her roll in one gloved hand. "I only met him when I began my work-study here at the Civic Institute of History. He's a bit of an enthusiast."

"You work at the museum?" Jane put her food down, intrigued.

"I do! I am what amounts to an assistant curator. My particular expertise lies in the unearthing and preservation of the Prospitian artifacts that lie beneath our very feet. You don't know?" she asked, noticing Roxy's perplexed glance at Jane.

"Don't got a clue," she admitted. "My education's kind of spotty, considering I blacked out through half of high school."

Calliope sat back in her chair and spread her palms. "Nearly twenty-five hundred years ago, this soil bore the crown of early civilization: a gleaming kingdom named Prospit. The writings called it the City in the Sky, and it's said that the king and queen shared the power between them to nightly shepherd the souls of their beloved citizens. And the walls and minarets were said to be made of gold and silver. Can you even imagine?" Her enormous eyes shone. "Under our flats and petrol stations lies the City of Dreams!"

Jane goggled.

"What. A. Primo adorkable nerd babe!" Roxy's hands were plastered to her cheeks like a preteen who'd just won the boy band sweepstakes. "Scramble the squad, J-Crocks, my beating heart has been burgled to the max."

"Oh, please, I know it must sound silly," murmured Calliope, dropping her hands beneath the table and turning away, charmingly cutesy even in her embarrassment.

The urge to smile finally beat out Jane's headache, and she shook her head. "Not at all, Calliope. In fact, I think that's one of the most inspiring things I've ever heard. A golden kingdom, built into the foundations of our fair city. It's enough to make a girl want to pin up her sleeves and give this place a good cleaning!"

"Hear, hear," chimed Roxy, lifting her glass of iced tea in a toast before drinking.

"If you don't mind my asking, though," Jane continued, "how does curating fit in with the stool pigeon trade? As much as Dirk enjoys his history, I'm not sure how he can find too many uses for it in collaring criminals."

The quick side-to-side flick of Calliope's head was just good-natured enough not to be haughty. "I think you'd be stunned," she said, "what a good grounding in the classics may provide an innovative mind. Consider the mutilation of those three bodies you have in the morgue, for instance." There was a brief silence. "Oh, dear. What informant worth her salt wouldn't have her police sources?"

"Dirk already asked you about them, didn't he," said Jane flatly.

Calliope gripped the edge of the table and made a face that could only be described as 'gnee.' "You do catch on quick, Detective Crocker! Yes, Dirk did already ask me, but I had not put together my answer when he was taken off the case."

Roxy pushed the rest of her salad aside. "So what's the deal with the post-mortem eye-gouging and leg-snopping? I mean, better that the killer-slash-ers waited till they kicked it before breaking out the socket spoons, but it's still seriously squicky."

"I do have my guesses." As if suddenly remembering it, Calliope took a toothy bite from her cinnamon roll and glanced at the ceiling while she chewed. "Ritual dismemberment as a practice does not belong to any specific culture, though its repetition in all three executions--" instead of deaths or murders, Jane noted, though it was possible Calliope had heard Roxy say it a few minutes ago, "--suggests at least some personal symbolism."

"Meaning?" Jane prompted.

"Exactly what you've already surmised," said Calliope, inattentively unrolling her roll. "Either the killer is leaving his or her signature, or issuing a specific challenge. Throwing down the gauntlet, if you please."

"English."

Roxy whistled, low and wary. The tingling sensation of truth had returned, but it was a quiet, building buzz rather than an excited jolt.

Calliope nodded. "That would be my conclusion. He's unsubtle at best. It would take that much to get his attention."

The crimelord, when he made public appearances, always took care to parade his ruined and rebuilt leg as much as possible. Everyone knew the myth: he had torn the limb off himself to avoid capture and built the prosthetic replacement from scraps of war machines. Look, he seemed to say. Look upon my works, you insignificant crawling mites, and despair.

Jane braced her elbows on the table and laced her fingers together. "What about the coins in the eyes?"

"That's a much more robust line of inquiry, insofar as antiquity goes." Without missing a beat, Calliope ducked under the table and withdrew her bookbag. From it, she pulled a handful of yellowing, jacketless hardcovers, which she pushed across the table to Jane. "I hope you find these helpful. I took the trouble of marking the appurtenant sections on Greek and Egyptian funeral rites, should you find the time to peruse them."

"I will make sure I do." Jane flipped through one briefly--noted the sticky tabs and passages outlined in apple-green highlighter--and pulled them towards her. "Thank you. Could you give me and Ro-Lal the short version, though?"

"Of course." Calliope seemed to brighten at the opportunity. She put both her hands face-down on the table. "Electrum is a naturally-occurring alloy often called 'green gold' in vernacular. Some of the earliest coins were made from it."

"Greek and Egyptian?" Jane guessed.

"On the money, lovely," replied Calliope, winking. "It went out of style as a coin metal roughly two millennia ago when silver became common currency in the Hellenistic world. If your suspect is going to the trouble of digging electrum up, I'm sure he, or she, knows this."

Roxy nabbed a piece of Jane's croissant and said, "Okay, so the killer's got a boner for wicked old shiznasty. What does that tell us?"

"It tells us that the criminal with whom we're dealing is an educated scoundrel," said Jane. "With enough of a grudge to jab at English's pretensions to archaeology."

"Unless it's the man himself just doing his Egypto-English thing," said Roxy around her mouthful of croissant. "I mean, that guy is a few carvings short of a sarcophagus, but he does love him some tomb-raiding."

"Actually." Calliope stopped, then started curling her unrolled cinnamon roll back up. "He's not much of an archaeologist at all. Not a proper one. I've heard," her voice diminished, but her eyes flicked back up to hover back and forth between Jane's and Roxy's faces, "that he was only interested in discovering some kind of treasure. Some artifact that grants him the power he now controls." She dropped her gaze to the perfect spiral she'd created from her roll. 

"I wouldn't want to influence your deductions unduly," she continued hesitantly, "but it does appear to me rather more like a threatening gesture against him than from him. And Lord English has never had much truck with myths. Again, he's not subtle."

Jane stroked her chin with a thumb. "You do seem to know an awful lot about him."

Calliope folded her hands and twiddled--actually twiddled--her thumbs. "Dirk does pay me to." 

"What you're saying, though," Roxy said as she polished off Jane's croissant, "is that you really think someone's taking pot-shots at Lord English?"

After a moment, Calliope shrugged and scratched at her tiny, almost nonexistent nose. "Do you?"

"Well. Yeah, sure. Sounds pretty legit," said Roxy, licking crumbs from her fingers. "But Janey's the expert."

Finally, Jane nodded. "It makes sense, and it's more of a direction than we had before. I don't think I ever believed that English's hand was the one behind this. Calliope's right; despite the brutish savagery, it's not his style."

"So you believe me?" Calliope asked, all wide-eyed eagerness.

Roxy laughed and patted her wig, taking enough care not to dislodge it. "Why wouldn't we, Li'l Callie?"

If Calliope had expected doubt when she turned to Jane, she didn't find it. "Dirk trusts you, and I trust Dirk. I may be a stubborn skeptic, but everything you've been saying lines up with the facts as I know them."

Calliope looked from one woman to the other, seeming not to know what to do with her hands. Finally, she set them in her lap. "What will you do now?"

"I have a meeting to arrange," Jane said, standing and picking up her coat. "Roxy, go home and take a breather, all right? You've been up half the night and I'd like you to come with me tonight."

"Ten-four, Crocker." Roxy dug in her purse for tip change. "But only if you promise to join the nap party, chica."

"Good grief, Lalonde. I promise. You don't need to mother me."

"Whom are you meeting tonight?" Calliope asked.

Jane stopped in the middle of reaching for the hat she didn't have with her and took a tired moment to appreciate a girl who knew how to use an object pronoun. It affected her answer. "Who stands to gain the most should English topple?"

"Oo-o-ooh," said Roxy, grinning irreverently.

"Who?" repeated Calliope.

Hat or not, Jane mimed the action of tipping it. "The Midnight Crew."

The Midnight Crew did no business before midnight, so Jane had enough time to fall exhausted into bed.

As always, the starless sky descends to stifle her, and she starts to run through the anonymous streets even before he has a chance to give chase.

But something is different this time. A tiny point of light flits through her dream, casting a thimble's worth of shadows, and for a second she recognizes a deeply-carved relief of a six-winged angel: the cornerstone of Clock Street.

The light vanishes as soon as she notices it, and another noise joins hers; another hoarse, desperate panting follows just off-beat with her ragged breathing. Someone is there. Terrified at this change in her nightmare's scope, she spurs her gown-tangled legs on to painful speed. Syncopated footsteps fall on her ears, never quite falling behind.

She's afraid of the visitor to her dream.

She's afraid, for some reason, that it's herself.

Jane falls into the underground with a lurch that should wake her, but she just tumbles through darkness without injury, only sobs and panic. She has never had control over this dreamscape, but this new layer of unfamiliarity--sharp against the vague dread of her previous trips to the darkened city--is wrong. She is not supposed to share her sleeping fear. She was not safe, but now she is exposed.

And then the big man is there, as he always already is, and she forgets her unnamed pursuer until a hard, slender hand grabs hers.

Jane, whispers Roxy, loud in the sudden vacuum.


	3. Justice Park and Sunset Street

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things go sour.

Friday, November 10th, 12:06 A.M.; Justice Park

"So you only wanted tickets to the gun show, huh, Janey?"

"Shh! You did bring it, right?"

"'Course I did, what kind of girl do you take me for? You concentrate those well-rested brains of yours on the negotiations, Crocks." Roxy crouched behind a hedge and sighted along her rifle. "I'll cover you like an overplayed pop-song."

"You'd better, Lalonde." Jane stepped back, swallowed, and straightened her tie.

It was a cool, clear, moonless night. Jane was overdressed for the weather in her layers and coat, but Roxy shivered.

Neither of them had mentioned seeing the other in her dream. Jane had woken sweat-soaked with a sprinter's hammering heart and an empty hand, but she said nothing. Every time she tried, the words died on her tongue as if exposure killed them. Jane had been running from her dreams too long now to bring them into the waking world.

On Roxy's part she could see no sign that anything had happened. Maybe she didn't know. She'd heard from Dirk that Roxy had long teetered on the brink of waking, the way he and Jane had woken years ago to find their dream world in shambles, but Roxy never seemed to remember what she dreamed when she woke. She lived her life unweighted by the fear Jane carried, as if her sleep was only a series of jumbled images. Surely she couldn't have really stolen into Jane's dream.

Maybe the whole thing was just a dream, in the sense 'just a dream' had once had before Lord English had been a thought. Maybe the stirred-up, half-hobbled hope that someone dared even to dare against the English monolith was warping her perception of her nightly prison. She remembered the pinprick of light, however brief its appearance.

But she remembered the cool dryness of Roxy's hand in hers, how Roxy always clutched a little too tightly, and knew something real had happened.

Now was not the time to ask.

Diamonds Droog was a shade of a shadow--not thin, but transparent in a way only the truly unobtrusive could obtain. Jane had once watched him sit completely motionless for sixteen hours and knew, with a horror that stuck in the brightest parts of her brain, that he'd been perfectly content to do so. His was a frightening patience and an even more terrible apathy. They hid the violence at his core.

Jane approached the bottom of the playground slide where he waited, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips.

"What's this about, Detective," he said without inflection.

"Well, you see," Jane began.

"Is this about the murders."

She stopped, started to ask which, and then stopped again. "Yes," she said, echoing his toneless delivery.

The cigarette waggled in his mouth before again falling limp. "We didn't do 'em."

"That is exactly what the wrongful party would say to a detective of the law."

"Point."

Droog returned to a silence that Jane did not want to chance breaking. Suddenly, though, she was glad that he was the one sent out to meet her. She did not have fond memories of the Crew's boss. He'd tried to stab her in the side last time she'd seen him.

It wasn't like him to miss an opportunity to shank a police officer.

"You usually have a hat," Droog pointed out, lifting his own to rub at his immaculately bare scalp. Most involved in the upper levels of the city's organized crime shaved their heads, including women. He lowered his hat again and pulled the brim down just so, continuing, "Real dapper one. I like the tie, though."

Jane squared her shoulders, but her voice was nothing but polite inquiry. "Where's Slick?"

It was the right question. Without answering right away, Droog took the cigarette from his mouth and flicked it, though there was no ash to shake loose. "He's otherwise engaged."

"In a murder?"

"No." His voice was still flat. "I already told you. That wasn't us."

She opened her mouth but he held up a hand. "I'm going to keep this short, Detective." That said, he reached into his pocket. Jane tensed and she thought she heard a heavy click in the distance, but he only withdrew a lighter, painted matte black to match his suit. He lit his cigarette, took a deep drag, and courteously turned away from her to exhale.

"It wasn't us," he said as she watched the warm glow between his fingers, "because the boss has been in intensive care for three weeks. The hospital," he added helpfully when Jane was too dumbfounded to answer.

Finally, she shook her head and asked, "Why? How?"

He tapped the ash from his cigarette long before he needed to. He was uneasy, she realized, but it didn't comfort her. She was uneasy, too. "Long story," Droog muttered. "The short version: huge bitch."

Jane racked her brain for a moment, not because she didn't know who he meant, but because she needed the words to make sense. "He attacked Sn0wman?" she asked incredulously.

"Other way around." Tap, tap. "Came in and pretty much ripped off his arm. Almost took his face off, too."

She tried to think of something to say. "Golly," was all that came out.

"Kind of nice of her in a way," said Droog "If Slick hadn't been doped to the teeth on painkillers, he'd probably have insisted we take credit for this shit with the Felt. Or go finish what the real killers started. Whoever they are." He puffed at his cigarette. "Almost like she knew about it beforehand and decided she wanted to keep him around a little longer."

"She has a funny way of showing it," Jane managed.

"It's a hoot," he agreed mildly, then rose from his seat on the slide. Fully unfolded, he towered over her, but she refused to back away. "Hey," Droog called into the night. "You can quit hiding now."

Jane tried to hide her chagrin as Roxy rounded the hedge, but couldn't help the involuntary jump when the hulking form of Hearts Boxcars lumbered after her. Roxy gave her a grimace and an elaborate eyeroll, but her hands shook around her lowered gun. A bare, meaty hand lay on her shoulder.

Hearts Boxcars could rend someone in two with those hands.

Jane could imagine it all too clearly: Roxy's sleepy eyes widening as his fingers closed around her side, and then the scream of fear and then choked pain as he twisted her, snapped her, broke her like a doll, and the worst was that the scream started as her name.

"Nice seeing you girls," Droog said, "is what I would say, but it isn't. Just thought I should clear the boss's name. Boxcars, we're leaving."

"But--" started Boxcars, tightening his grip on Roxy's shoulder so that she winced.

"No. Not even a little bit."

Boxcars grumbled and thrust Roxy away. She stumbled forward in her hurry to reach Jane, but then, even though she quivered like a pine needle in a storm, she stood her ground in front of her with her hands on her gun.

"Roxy," Jane whispered, but her friend shook her head.

Droog watched them for a moment, then reached into his pocket. "Catch," he said, and tossed something to Roxy.

It was the lighter.

"Light a fire until you buy yourself something more suitable to the weather," he said, adjusting the lapels of his jacket. "Take some dress advice from your detective friend here."

He turned to Jane, then, and considered her with only the suggestion of eyes in shadow. "If you catch whoever it is bumping off Felt," said Droog, "let them know they got a place with the Midnight Crew." Then he nodded to Boxcars and, as the bigger man shot hateful looks at both women over his shoulder, they left the park.

Only then did Roxy slump and sigh. "Didn't hear him come up behind me," she explained, letting her gun hang by its strap to stick her hands in her armpits. "Motherf-fucker."

"Oh, Roxy. Roxy, I shouldn't have made you come."

Roxy's teeth were chattering as she pulled away. "I'm fine. Jane, I'm fine. I just. Fuck, I dunno what I was expecting coming out to a gang deal. I'm just a lab girl, what was I thinking?" She took a deep, shuddering breath. "This is what you guys do for a living."

"Here." Jane, despite her own sudden trembling, shrugged out of her coat and wrapped it around her friend's shoulders. Neither of them could manage the buttons. Jane still reached for the holes to make an effort, but then Roxy caught her hand and held it.

Hers was hard, cool, and dry, and though she wouldn't look at Jane, her fingers' grip was too tight.

"Let's go home," said Roxy.

Jane could only nod.

This time, Roxy is in her dream from the beginning, and the little flitting light flickers but does not go out. Jane recognizes all the streets now: Clock Street again, Maple Street's Doric columns, a frantic turn onto Banks Avenue that immediately drops them off on Museum Way.

She asks Roxy how she got there.

Roxy flaps a hand at some shattered glass and shrugs. No biggie. She broke a window.

With the light to guide her and Roxy to ground her, Jane can suddenly tear through the city with direction. She knows her way. She knows where she's going.

It doesn't help. The big man hunts her, his inexorable breath at her heels, herds and hounds her with his horrible laugh tumbling hot and rocky around gnashing teeth. He smells like sulfur, like ozone, like battery acid and blood. This time Jane's hand is too tight around Roxy's, but she doesn't flinch. She only urges Jane on. Go. Keep going. Don't let him catch us.

They keep going, hearts and feet pounding as they enter the heart of the dream. There, at the dead center of the city, lies the old university looking cozy and young after the Mayor's last coat of paint in the firefly's--that's what her guide is--light. It is ready for its reopening tomorrow, ready to hold symposiums and fitness classes until the collegiate return. Roxy dashes towards it, tugging Jane along.

He roars his terrible laugh and the ground gives way beneath them.

Roxy!

She is unhurt. They are both unhurt, she has lost Roxy's hand, and when Jane turns in the lightless night to run, she finds she stands at the depthless precipice again.

Run, urges Roxy. Jane, run!

But Jane can't run. There is nowhere to run to. She can see nothing in front of her.

Pain lances through her spine, raw and red, and tears her apart.

Jane was still awake at three in the morning when Dirk called to tell her there had been a fourth victim: Doc Scratch himself, the warden of English's pilots. Keeper of the city's dream-killers.

His was the most gruesome display yet. His dead, stunted body had been strung with wire to hang from a tree like a puppet of the most grotesque theater, arms splayed and hands hanging down in limp surrender. The stump of his severed leg oozed red-black pus onto the grass below. His face was slack, and two flies, braving the autumn chill, buzzed in and out of his mouth and explored his coin-filled eye sockets.

The tree stood in Justice Park. They'd found him barely three hours after Jane and Roxy had left.

Jane stared at his blanching face, watched the blood settle cool and purple in his one bare foot.

Those sparking thrills of truth she'd felt just the day before were gone. Now she only felt cold and vaguely sick. Jane had seen death before, but she'd never felt so threatened by it.

Something was shifting. Someone in the city's underbelly had gained enough power not just to spit in Lord English's face, but strike a truly crippling blow, and neither he nor the authorities had yet caught him. Sn0wman, murder's black queen, had--in an unprecedented display of something like sentiment--taken her closest rival out before someone else could stop him for good.

And Jane's dreams were changing.

She stood there alone as the police cut Scratch's body down and wondered what kind of justice brought truly just deaths.

Friday, November 10th, 11:43 A.M.; Sunset Street

Though the weather had taken a turn for the rainy again, Jane left Sn0wman's hideaway crawling with policemen. The place was empty; stripped completely bare. But there was no record of her departure, not even a whisper of a rumor. The woman had simply dissolved into the ether with all her personal effects--including any evidence linking her to their three unsolved murders.

Jane wasn't surprised. But she hadn't thought Sn0wman was the killer, either; she had little motive, having ties with the Felt herself, and no personal vendetta of hers would have triggered her to strike against Lord English if it meant she would have to give up her secure little corner of the underworld.

It left Jane little to work with, though.

The inquiries into the drugs and the clowns and Megido's stilettos were finally bearing fruit, but they were empty and tasteless: confirmation that it was all, without a doubt, Felt-related. Another stool pigeon had confirmed the two face-painted druggies as particular flunkies of English's, wrapped up not only in PCP and other, more dangerous drugs, but in murders and internal clean-up. The stilettos had been paid for by English himself. Megido had probably done more than pilot the dreams--more than steer the city's dreamers into madness. The thought of her sister's dead eyes made Jane's heart ache dully.

Jane had forced Roxy to stay home with Commissioner Quinn's approval after she'd made her reports on Droog and Scratch, but now she wished someone had thought to push a day of bad TV and bed-rest on her, too. Her lead had dead-ended, she hadn't slept since waking in tears, the murders were still happening, and she'd very nearly gotten her best friend killed.

Roxy wasn't used to this. She was an experienced analyst and a scientific genius, but she wasn't meant for the field, not when the field included Lord English and the Felt and the Midnight Crew. She was filling in for Dirk, but she wasn't Dirk, and Jane wanted to throw up for forgetting that.

It was just so easy to love Roxy, now that she'd picked herself up. She could be moody and insensitive and nonsensical and pushy, but she was loyal and guilelessly supportive. She had always been there in ways even Dirk hadn't.

And Jane hadn't lost her, but she could have.

She remembered Doc Scratch's body slowly swinging under the tree. She remembered examining Damara Megido's corpse for answers, like a textbook highlighted with blood.

Roxy had a daughter, for Pete's sake.

Jane had risked Roxy's whole life--her clean, hard-earned life--for a dud lead, and still she had nothing to show for it.

She ducked into the upturned collar of her coat as she walked somewhere, anywhere, just to be alone for a minute.

"Jane? Jane Crocker?"

Jane turned.

"Fancy meeting you here, lovely."

Calliope stood there, a plastic limeade figurine in an overlarge raincoat, and offered Jane an umbrella.

Calliope was a good listener. She bought Jane a hot gyro sandwich and listened to her talk with eyes that barely blinked. She gasped but never interrupted, and she asked questions only in the right places to clarify an important point .

When Jane finished telling her everything that had happened with the case since they'd last spoken, Calliope clucked and said, "Oh, goodness. Poor dears, both of you."

"I'm hardly the one who deserves even an iota of comfort here. I'm not the one who had to face that--that hegemonic brute." Jane balled up the wrapping paper for her sandwich and threw it to the ground.

"No, no, I'm sure Roxy doesn't think of it that way! She's probably home right now, berating herself senseless for it." Calliope fretted, then tried very lightly to pat Jane's shoulder. "She wouldn't blame you."

Jane let her face sink into her hands. "I'm an awful friend."

Calliope hesitated, then retrieved the crumpled paper and threw it out before returning to Jane's side. "Perhaps you should think of it this way. You're the only one who could thoughtlessly put her life at risk from unscrupulous hooligans and somehow have her be the one to feel guilty for it. Yes?"

It took a moment for that to sink in. "You're saying we're both awful friends."

"No! No, hardly. Lovely, listen." Jane didn't look up, so Calliope leaned forward and tried to peer through her fingers. "I'm saying that perhaps you two deserve each other. That few people would understand your friendship as you do." That got no response, and Calliope reached out with two gentle, gloved fingers and tried to lift her chin a little. "You know she would not be pleased to know that you've been punishing yourself for this."

Jane raised her head but did not speak, so Calliope drew her hand back and considered what to say next.

In the end, she only said, "I've an idea how Sn0wman might have slipped past you."

Most of the police were gone by then--it was clear no one had entered Sn0wman's house in weeks, and no hound liked a cold trail--and the man on duty only asked one question: "You're still coming to the Mayor's university-opening thing tomorrow, right, Crocker?" "Of course!" He waved them both through. Without a word, Calliope led Jane straight into the basement.

"Old flats like these sometimes," Calliope murmured to herself, shadowed starkly by the bare light bulb that hung from the ceiling. She was knocking on walls, listening at cracks, and Jane could only stand there baffled.

"Calliope?"

"Shh! I'm quite sure it should come through here."

Jane moved to examine a wall, though she had no idea what to look for. "What on earth are you talking about?"

"Oh, bollocks." Calliope turned in place, tugging at her wig. "If only I could just--"

Calliope's foot nearly went right through the floor. She yelped and fell backwards as the broken sheet of concrete-colored balsa wood tipped, swung, and fell through into darkness. After exchanging a glance, both girls leaned towards the hole to peer in.

"It's a tunnel," said Jane.

"Indeed it is," answered Calliope. "Just a moment."

Calliope's phone doubled as a flashlight, and with a little hum like a sci-fi phaser, she filled the tunnel with light. Despite the rain, it was dusty and dry, and the walls glinted faintly.

"Mica, perhaps," Calliope said, then added, "Fancy a tour?"

Her eyes shone like the sparkling walls, shone like twin green moons, and Jane thought about the possibility of Sn0wman waiting in the tunnels. "Me first, young lady," she said, and started to lower herself down a set of hand- and toe-holds carved into the wall. Though regular, the steps were not deep, and Calliope steadied her once when she slipped. The girl had surprising strength in her compact limbs.

The floor, when she reached it, was smooth stone, but the walls were the real wonder. In the bobbing light as Calliope climbed down, Jane tried to make out the glittering patterns around her. "Gosh. You know, I'm fairly certain these designs have been inlaid with some sort of metal."

Eyes gleaming, Calliope took her gloved hand and wiped it across the surface. "Electrum. Green gold," she announced, and swept the beam of her phone light across the tunnel. Under the dust, stretching both ways as far as the light reached, the whole tunnel shimmered. "Blimey."

Without saying a word, the two began to walk, but Jane immediately held a hand out to stop Calliope. "Wait."

A woman's footprints lay, faint, but still visible, in the dust.

Two and a half hours later, with the help of a whole squad of off-duty police officers and one stolid and commanding museum director, they discovered that the tunnel arced from the corner of Museum and Sunset past Clock Street, all the way beyond the city limits; a curve that traversed over half the city. It would have gone on, but the tunnel roof had collapsed half a block beyond Sunset. Exits lined it roughly every half-block or so with surprising regularity; Calliope suggested that settlers had repurposed extant Prospitian groundwork as foundations for their new homes and then forgot about them as the city grew upwards and outwards.

Chasing Sn0wman on foot was out of the question. She had long since escaped the city limits, and three weeks of rain had erased her surface tracks.

The entire tunnel was lined with inscriptions inlaid with faintly tarnished electrum, repeating patterns of spirals and boxy shapes. Some of the squad--and Jane and Calliope caught each other doing it, too--had pried idly at the metal to see if it might serendipitously come loose, but it all remained tightly sealed.

"To the best of my knowledge," Calliope said, "I think our tunnel must be a Prospitian aqueduct."

Exhausted and dirty from their exploration, the two sat in a cozy alcove near the caved-in end past Sunset Street. Jane had her face in her hands and nodded faintly. She had lost her lead once again, and she still hadn't spoken to Roxy.

"Some things have outlasted Prospit's demise, you understand." It was quiet in the tunnel. Though they sat near enough an exit to breathe air that wasn't stale, they couldn't hear the pattering rain. Only a faint, slow, rippling echo reached them. "Structural skeletons. Part of my thesis involves mapping out the unique aqueduct that irrigated the city."

"Mm." The rippling sound was soothing, but Jane felt washed out and colorless. Letting Calliope fill her ears with words was easy.

The girl seemed willing to comply. "Being so close to the real heart of Prospit," she trailed off briefly, but continued, "Oh, me. I did cling so to my fancy that, perhaps, the stories were true. About Their Majesties' power over their kingdom's dreams. I thought it sounded so lovely."

Calliope stood, adjusted her now irreparably dirty wig, and walked to the blocked end of the tunnel. "The anthropological evidence has been quite overwhelming, actually. The key to dreams, buried safely in the center of the city. I remember there being quite a stir about it in archaeologists' circles when I was young. And of course, seeing these tunnels in person, and being able to explore them with someone I've come to admire as much as I do you," she smiled at Jane, "has been rather like a wish come true."

She dusted off the rubble, as if that would reveal some path through it, then sighed. "But even this, right now, seems to be only a dream itself, doesn't it?"

There, in the dark tunnels underneath the city with only one police standard flashlight between them, Jane suddenly remembered the changes in her nightmare. Her skin crawled. "I should very well hope not."

Calliope turned, and even in the poor light her eyes shone. For a moment, Jane thought of something inhuman--cat's eyes, or lithium. With a sudden vehemence, she hissed, "I abhor him."

"Calliope?"

Arms spread, legs straight, Calliope clenched her fists and looked for all the world, in her bowtie and blazer and fluffy white wig, like the ghost of another time. "He took our beautiful, lovely dreams and smashed them up like they were rubbish. Like human beings were rubbish. And then he flung us loose to scatter and hide while he plays games with our fear." Her voice sunk to a whisper. "He made us ugly."

"I." Jane's head reeled at this unexpected rebellion from Calliope, from a stranger she'd only known for two days. "Are you talking about Lord English?"

"'Lord.'" As if it was finally too much, Calliope pulled her dust-covered wig from her head and rubbed her bald, stubbly scalp. It looked newly-shaven. "I'd hoped, once, that he would learn. If he first destroys everything he touches, what, then, remains about for him to rule?"

Jane rose, too, mouth dry, but heart racing. That slight upward pull on her spine, the little tingling whisper, had returned to her in the dark, of all places, buried deep beneath her streets. "You seem to be taking his actions as something rather personal."

Outlined by her phone's white glow, Calliope seemed to be limned in starlight. "We have all suffered under his domain, have we not?"

The silence settled heavy on them like dust, until Jane finally whispered, "Yes. We have. But what can we do?"

Calliope's eyes glittered.

"Wake."

Jane looked at her for a long time, this study of ferocity in miniature. Too much time passed. She closed her eyes. "I have a quadruple homicide to solve."

"Oh. Well, then." Calliope loosened her fists, but her small, sad smile was real.

"I believe in you, Jane."

The words hung between them like a soap bubble chain. If either of them breathed, it would pop. Jane wanted to hold on to this moment, to Calliope's strange, hollow-cheeked, smiling face. But she had a duty to Commissioner Quinn. She had a duty to Dirk. She had a duty to Roxy, after what she'd put her through. She had a duty to the girl who'd gone home with her hat.

And she had a duty to life. Four people were dead.

When she turned to leave, Calliope called out, "Do tell Roxy she's been perfectly lovely, would you? And make it up soon between the two of you."

Jane hesitated, then nodded. "I will."

Four people were dead, and so many more were alive.

This time, when the starless sky falls down, Jane takes Roxy's hand and doesn't let go. The firefly, as if knowing where she needs to be, does not take her by the circuitous side-street path this time but straight down Museum Way.

Jane is leading, or Roxy is lagging. She tugs away and says she doesn't want to slow Jane down.

Jane only holds on tighter and speeds up.

She realizes the big man never comes; he is always already there, inexplicably. She smells his breath and the reek of fear and swallows it, allows it space in her. Jane cannot expend energy on fighting not to be afraid. She can only take that fear and weave it into her life until it makes something strong out of her.

Her hold strengthens Roxy, too, and she keeps pace with Jane now as they run not away from the man, but towards him. Instead of growing larger as they come near, he shrinks and fades. Soon she doesn't feel his presence at all but a sense of space, a sense of emptiness, of calm, of quiet. She looks at Roxy, and Roxy smiles and squeezes her hand.

Her grip is still hard, but Jane molds the contours of her palm around hers until they fit.

For the first time since the Lord of Time devoured her dreams, Jane slows to a walk in the streets of her city. A single firefly, glowing proudly, lights her way. She strolls hand in hand with her best friend until they reach the center of the spiral, the old university. They each use one hand to open the gates.

There is a tomb on the grounds, and in it, Jane finds the passage to the underground. Roxy is the first to leap.

Together they enter the dark heart of the city, the room at the edge of a precipice, and even the firefly's brave light cannot pierce it.

Here, Jane knows. Roxy, she says.

Jane?

Tell me I can do it.

Roxy looks at her.

You can do anything you set your mind to, girlfriend, she says with a grin the densest fog couldn't erase. Whatever it is you're planning, I know you can do it.

I believe in you, Jane.

It's Calliope's voice, too.

Jane advances to the edge of the nothingness, Roxy's hand still firm in hers. She holds on to it. Without turning, Jane takes a breath, fixes her gaze on no point in the darkness, and runs.

The void holds her weight, and Roxy's delighted laughter tumbles over her like gold and silver.

When she woke up, Jane knew what she had to do.

"Roxy," she said when Roxy picked up the phone. "I need you to invite Calliope to the Mayor's party tomorrow."


	4. The Old University

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The girls take action (and party hardy).

Saturday, November 11th, 8:43 P.M.: The Old University, Center Street

"Well, don't you look suave as fuck!"

"And you!" Jane grinned as Roxy pulled a showy twirl in her wine-colored flapper dress. "Why, I'm dangerously near to requiring medical attention for a sudden attack of the fluster-flushitis, just from standing in such close proximity to the belle of the ball."

Roxy smoothed her dress down and fanned herself. "Whoo-ee, but it sure did get warm in here all of the sudden, Miss Flattering Pantsuit."

Jane laughed and fiddled with her cufflinks. She'd been feeling bold and dressed herself in her favorite colors: blue and gold. "Gosh, Ro-Lal, you're enough to make a girl blush."

"That was the plan all along. To give you," said Roxy, reaching forward to press Jane's cheeks between her hands, "a blusher. Oh, my god, Janey, I can't stand it, you are the most totally adorable precious that's ever preshed."

"Could I do any less for my very best friend?" Jane grinned and held her hand briefly, gave it a gentle squeeze before letting go.

Roxy actually blushed. "Well. Shucks, buster."

It was a policeman's ball thrown by the Mayor--who didn't, of course, understand the reference, Dirk was quick to point out from behind his drink before disappearing to who-knew-where--to honor the reopening of the Old University. It had a new name now that no one but the Mayor cared to learn, and they were there not to celebrate the civic benefits of learning, but the end of a very long week, just as all weeks were for officers of the law.

Commissioner Quinn was there, understated and elegant in a white sari threaded with subtle colors--the suggestion of a flower, or a bird, here and there. Her husband, the director of the Museum of Literature, seemed to have forgotten the rest of the room existed. He only had eyes for her.

Dirk was there, somewhere. He was always in and out at parties. Dave was talking to his voluble friends from the District Attorney's office. Officer Reyes was egging on the Mayor to drink a can of something dubious in a misguided attempt on both their parts to impress the chief of the City Letter Carriers, who was more interested in talking to Commissioner Quinn. They were like teenagers. Jane kept having to hide a smile. Adolescent behavior was far more entertaining in grizzled adults than it was while actually adolescent.

But Jane wasn't paying attention to the speeches, the awards, the announcements, or the dances. Even the food hardly caught her attention, though she accepted more than she thought her fair share of praise for her carrot cake. She was waiting for one last straggler to arrive on Roxy's invitation.

And there she was. Draped in a sparkling black gown whose folds sparkled under the lights, and which revealed a swath of green at the leg that brought out her eyes, Calliope entered the great hall like a shy, tiny galaxy.

Dirk, appearing from nowhere again, whistled low by Jane's ear. "Who invited Cal?"

"We did," Jane replied, excited, but smug. "Roxy and I."

"I think this whole room owes you two a note of appreciation." He watched Roxy greet Calliope, and the awkward goddess became once again a bubbly and mortal grad student in the humanities. "I mean. Damn. That is one hell of a dress."

"She's one hell of a young woman," Jane replied.

When Dirk disappeared again, she tried to catch her friend's eye. Roxy saw her, nodded, and gave her the most exaggerated, open-smiled wink she'd ever seen outside of dinner theater.

It warmed her heart and steeled her for what she would have to do that night.

No one was prepared when the lights went out, and Jane heard someone let out a little scream while one of the D.A.'s girls asked, in a distinct and weirdly baffled tone, "What? What did I miss?"

Nobody noticed Jane slip out one of the side doors onto the university grounds, where she ran to the tomb of its first president and waited for Roxy.

"Hey," Roxy whispered when she finally caught up, though there was no one around to hear them. "So when are you going to fill me in on the actual haps, Jane? Why'd you want Callie to come if you weren't gonna talk to her? P. S., isn't she cute without the wig?"

"We," Jane said as she hefted the bolt cutter she'd left in the grass that morning for this reason, "are setting a trap to stop more Felt murders from happening. And for that." She snapped through the padlock that secured the tomb gate. "We need Calliope."

"Oh. Well, why didn't you tell me that? You could've told me that. Telling me was a thing you could've totally done with that." Roxy held Jane's arm to steady her as she entered the tomb, but neither of them suggested a light. "Do you want me to go back and get her?"

"No, shh. I wanted you two to enjoy yourselves, and I trusted that you'd trust me. Here's the stairs."

Even as they crawled into the bowels of a tomb on their way to meet a serial killer, Roxy found it in her to snort and roll her eyes. "If you wanted me to enjoy myself, you could've told me I was allowed a couple drinks."

"I think I'd prefer that you didn't enjoy yourself that much. Roxy." Jane turned and took her friend's arm. They'd spent half the day already apologizing, but still, the words stuck in her throat. Roxy had been so afraid. Jane was afraid to see her in danger again. Even more afraid to ask her to be the one to risk it. "Roxy, you don't have to come with me."

Roxy's grip as she clasped Jane's arm in return reassured her in its strength. "Like I could let you go alone," she whispered, fierce as ice. Her teeth flashed in the darkness. "Besides, your night vision sucks. You wouldn't get nowheres without me, Crocks."

Jane smiled in spite of her dread. She squeezed her friend's arm. "Thanks, Roxy."

"Come on, we're wasting nightlight."

When they reached the bottom, Jane turned on a small penlight--even that little bit of illumination was more than enough to allow her to find her way around, after spending years of her life dreaming of this tunnel.

"So what do you need me to do?" asked Roxy.

"First, we have to get to the dead center of this spiral."

"And then?"

"We have to make sure we got there before Calliope."

"I fear you're just a moment too late." There was a click behind them.

Neither woman turned. "Jane?" asked Roxy

"Yes, Roxy?"

"I hate to tell you this, but it kind of sounds like Callie's already here. This is like. The second time we've fucked up as hostesses, all not noticing her like a couple of inconsiderate old ladies. Speak up next time, okay, girl?"

Roxy looked behind her and Callie immediately pointed the gun at her head. Roxy raised her empty hands slowly.

"Jane?"

"Mm?" She still hadn't turned.

"You're not going to tell me something crazy, like that Callie's the killer, right?"

"Well, I was going to, but it hardly seems necessary now."

Roxy hung her head. "Ja-ane, you're making me look dumb in front of our friends."

"I'm terribly sorry, really, I am," said Calliope. Jane clicked off her penlight. "And I wouldn't want you two mixed up in this for the world. But neither will I allow you to stop me. I apologize."

"Callie, you don't need to do--"

"Okay," said Jane amiably.

Both Calliope and Roxy paused. "'Okay'?" repeated Roxy.

Jane swallowed, but truth buoyed rather than tantalized her now. She was doing the right thing. "Sure. I'm not going to stand in your way, Calliope."

"How is this okay?" Roxy asked, starting to shrill at the edges.

"Because after Calliope puts an end to what she came here to do," Jane said, finally looking over her shoulder in time to catch her glowing metal eyes, "she will do the right thing. Right?"

Calliope's gaze wavered.

"I told you before that I believed you because I trust Dirk," said Jane, raising her penlight again. "But that isn't enough, not for something on this scale. On the scale of whatever it is that you're planning. But you showed me something, I think. The reason it's important that I trust my friends enough to take them with me where I am afraid to go."

"Jane," said Roxy softly.

Jane made sure to say each of her next words deliberately. "I believe in you because we have the same dreams."

And then she flung herself in front of both Roxy and Calliope and shone her penlight directly into the eyes of Lord English.

He roared and stumbled back into the corner he'd just rounded. Roxy screamed. Jane heard her name, but there were two shots loud as cannons in the tunnel, and something red hot and terrible exploded into Jane's side. But she'd stepped out into the Void once already and that fear wasn't her fear anymore.

The tenements tower over Jane like she's at the bottom of a fishbowl, and she realizes that she is on her back in the middle of Maple staring up into the starless sky. Her stomach hurts, but it's far away, and she's content to lie there now that no giant figure will come to haunt her sleep.

She feels vaguely satisfied, a dreamy echo of how she feels at the end of a case, and she concludes that she must have done well that day. She wiggles her toes, ignores the pain in her belly, and feels a warmth covering her hand. She doesn't turn. The hand is hard and slender and she'd know it in the pitchest darkness.

A tiny light wanders across her vision and she squints. The firefly. Calliope, she names it, and then it is her, not as she first saw her in her wig and bowtie but in the goddess's garb, all made of stars.

I'm sorry, says Calliope.

I'm not, Jane assures her. She sees Calliope has won the dreams back, and that is good, and right, and true.

Calliope nods. I did, she says. I'm terribly sorry about what happened, though.

It's all right, Jane assures her, though she's not sure what did happen. Her memories of the tunnels are vague, like those of a distant, half-remembered daydream.

Calliope tells her she was shot. It does explain some things.

And Lord English?

Calliope is grave and defiant and frighteningly beautiful. Jane knows he won't haunt these dreams anymore.

And you, she asks. And you, Calliope?

She smiles, then, and it's the only softness in her hard, tiny form. Roxy arrested me, she says. Jane's eyes widen, but Calliope laughs. It's all right. I found Prospit, she adds, and now I can spend my time looking for the lost dreams.

Dirk's?

Dirk's. And others'.

Jane rubs her thumb gently over the hand in her hand. Good, she says.

I'm sorry, says Calliope.

Jane tells her she said that already. Say something else.

Very well, say the stars, and they spill from her dress into the air, across the sky, like pieces of tungsten or motes of dust or Roxy's laughter when she's with her daughter.

Jane Crocker, they say, splashing across the sky, brightening and multiplying until Jane's sure that there's no excuse for a sky to look like that, no excuse for a sky to be more light than dark. Jane Crocker, from your dear, trusted friend: Thank you.

And even as Jane finds the stars blurry with salt, the sky lightens.

For the first time since the Lord of Time dragged her world beneath the earth, Jane dreams of sunrise.

  


Jane woke bandaged in a hospital bed with her hat on her lap, Roxy's hand tight around hers, and a smile on her face.

"Dirk still owes us a toast," she murmured.

"He'll probably burn it," Roxy replied, face contorted unattractively as she tried not to cry. "He's a fucking culinary disaster."

Jane squeezed Roxy's hand weakly. "Remind me to teach him when we get some time off. Then he can bring me breakfast and coffee every day."

"Please, Janey." Her tears sparkled like stars. "You know I make a mean _caifé gaelach_. You need to fire that dude stat and sign me on."

"Hmm. You know." The walls were yellow as gold, and Jane closed her eyes again. "I'll think about it, Lalonde."

They fell asleep like that. Together.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Serpent's Tail (Radioactive Midnight Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/720438) by [ShinjiShazaki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinjiShazaki/pseuds/ShinjiShazaki)




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